This robust bottle belongs to a type of stoneware from the Takeo kilns that is defined by the use of white slip over nearly the entire vessel; iron-painted designs; a copper-green glaze that accentuates certain elements (such as the foliage); and the overall application of a transparent glaze. As with Joseon buncheong, the white slip not only makes a pleasing decoration in itself but creates an arresting contrast to the dark clay body. The use of copper-green glaze as a design element was undoubtedly inspired by the popular Oribe-style ceramics produced at the Mino kilns in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Provenance

[ Harry G. C. Packard , Tokyo, until 1975; donated and sold to MMA].

Exhibition History

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art in Early Japan," 1999–2000.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Birds, Flowers, and Buddhist Paradise Imagery in Japanese Art," February 14, 2004–June 13, 2004.